"I believe that I showed you his epistle in autumn last. He asks me if I have heard of _my_ 'laureat' at Paris[74],--somebody who has written 'a most sanguinary Epitre' against me; but whether in French, or Dutch, or on what score, I know not, and he don't say,--except that (for my satisfaction) he says it is the best thing in the fellow's volume. If there is any thing of the kind that I _ought_ to know, you will doubtless tell me. I suppose it to be something of the usual sort;--he says, he don't remember the author's name. "I wrote to you some ten days ago, and expect an answer at your leisure. "The separation business still continues, and all the world are implicated, including priests and cardinals. The public opinion is furious against _him_, because he ought to have cut the matter short _at first_, and not waited twelve months to begin. He has been trying at evidence, but can get none _sufficient_; for what would make fifty divorces in England won't do here--there must be the _most decided_ proofs. "It is the first cause of the kind attempted in Ravenna for these two hundred years; for, though they often separate, they assign a different motive. You know that the continental incontinent are more delicate than the English, and don't like proclaiming their coronation in a court, even when nobody doubts it. "All her relations are furious against him. The father has challenged him--a superfluous valour, for he don't fight, though suspected of two assassinations--one of the famous Monzoni of Forli. Warning was given me not to take such long rides in the Pine Forest without being on my guard; so I take my stiletto and a pair of pistols in my pocket during my daily rides. "I won't stir from this place till the matter is settled one way or the other. She is as femininely firm as possible; and the opinion is so much against him, that the _advocates_ decline to undertake his cause, because they say that he is either a fool or a rogue--fool, if he did not discover the liaison till now; and rogue, if he did know it, and waited, for some bad end, to divulge it. In short, there has been nothing like it since the days of Guido di Polenta's family, in these parts. "If the man has me taken off, like Polonius 'say, he made a good end,'--for a melodrama. The principal security is, that he has not the courage to spend twenty scudi--the average price of a clean-handed bravo--otherwise there is no want of opportunity, for I ride about the woods every evening, with one servant, and sometimes an acquaintance, who latterly looks a little queer in solitary bits of bushes. "Good bye.--Write to yours ever," &c. [Footnote 74: M. Lamartine.] * * * * * LETTER 377. TO MR. MURRAY.